Twin Fangs
by JaneBeyre
Summary: Leofric and Lowyn, known to their associates as the Tabris Twins, are better suited to scamming the rich from their wallets than parting monsters from their lives. A very AU blight retelling.
1. Prologue: Ambition

_Why I can smile, and murder whiles I smile_

_And cry 'content' to that which grieves my heart,_

_And wet my cheek with artificial tears_

_And frame my face to all occasions. _

_-Henry Vi, part 3, Shakespeare _

* * *

It was finally coming together. After weeks of preparations, of squirreling away costumes and props, of starting rumours in all the wrong places, of going over his lines again and again until he knew them like the lines of his very own palm, after all that and more, Leofric Tabris was ready.

Ready to scam the rich shems of Denerim for every coin they were worth.

Lowyn had complained at the expense of his disguise but his little sister had always been the miser of the twins. It was entirely essential, he explained to her calmly, to have the right lace ruffles on his doublet. No, it would not do to have second-hand, grimy old lace from the alienage haberdashery. Nor would he approve if she repurposed the lace from their mother's wedding dress, moth eaten and dusty as it was. New lace, fresh from Antiva, still smelling of the cigars it had been packed with. That was what Leofric's character required, and if he had to pay through the nose for it, by the Maker he would have.

And he had gotten it, of course. Leofric was resourceful like that. Even though his penny-pinch of a twin had refused to part with any more of their stash. She didn't understand. In this world you have to spend a little to gain a lot. She was dense as stone that one. He often joked with his friends that he had soaked up all the intellect in their mother's womb and left his sister the half-wit she was. Never within earshot of his twin though, Lowyn had her uses and stomach curdling revenge was one of them.

He stopped thinking about his sister as he stepped into the market. Riguardo Felladicci did not have siblings. And that was whose skin he wore now.

Felladicci would wrinkle his nose at the unfamiliar scents of this city. Fresh from the docks he would look up at the chantry with the distaste of a foreigner dismissing the architecture of barbarians. He would strut like a cockerel, careful of his fine leather boots in the sucking mud. Upon rounding the corner and the market coming into full view he would adjust his feathered hat, a gesture he always did when nervous, eyeing the mass of Ferelden flesh bartering and bargaining in the noon-time sun.

"_Braska,_" he would swear in his native Antivan.

Leofric was most happy with the accent, he had worked for weeks perfecting it despite Lowyn's moaning that it was a waste of time. What did she know about his art? Not a blighted thing that was sure. She was merely book-keeping muscle, despite her claims that she did all the leg work whilst he pranced around like the world was his stage. Just goes to show how dense she truly was.

He puffed himself up, as Felladicci would, and began to speak.

* * *

Lowyn could always recognise her brother, though she doubted even their own father could today underneath all the make-up, the false warts and boot-polish darkening his 'distinguished red mop' as he liked to call it. Leofric also liked to call himself a master of disguise. What a joke! If it wasn't for her skills he would never get away with it. Though she had to admit he could walk and talk the part, act like one of those thespians who sometimes drove through town on their gaudy wagons.

As she ostensibly browsed the wares of a fruit merchant, she saw him enter the market all wrapped up in Felladicci's clothes and gestures. She shook her head, pretending she was doing so at worm-eaten cabbages but inside knowing it was for her brother and his stupid eccentricities.

This scam, this job, this trick whatever you wanted to call it, was far too small-scale to require so much preparation and she knew it. Leofric niggled at the details for no good reason. He was the distraction, she was the cut-purse, that's what it boiled down to, the true essence of the trick. Old as time itself. But not good enough for Leofric...oh no...he had to invent a character, have costumes and make-up, have theatre and glamour. Well she was thoroughly sick of it. If only she could find some way to leave him to his parlour games but he was her twin and she feared they were bound together in blood for better or worse.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began to boom in his honeyed accent. "Boys and girls. _Hombres, elfos y enanos._ Gather and bear witness to the extraordinary tale of The Black Fox of Orlais."

This got the market's attention, alright. Merchants and purchasers alike stopped their haggling, or packing of goods, or crying of wares, to stare. The fruit stall man, transfixed by disbelief, utterly distracted by her brother's audacity, never saw her roll a particular fine looking apple up her sleeve and shrug it carefully into her pocket.

And then Lowyn really went to work.

* * *

"Brutish shems," he hissed, hours later, over his much-cheaper-than-he'd-like-whiskey, restored again to Leofric Tabris, hunched in his favourite shadowy corner of the Gnawed Noble, waiting for Tulsan to appear.

"You got what you deserved." His usually dour sister was all grins tonight. Had his mood been less dark he'd have observed that it suited her to smile. But he was a dark thundercloud of misery and refused to give her mocking any credence.

It had taken hours to wash out the oil darkening his hair, especially in the freezing water. She refused to buy firewood for their base in the summer, miser that she was. His doublet was ruined, of course, those rotten tomatoes the fruit vendor handed out had stained the green brocade beyond repair.

Lowyn had garnered a fine haul nonetheless. No doubt smirking as she cut the purses, pilfered wallets, all the while playing the innocent maid. Enough to pay Tulsan what they owed, enough to buy him this cheap swill and her that rot-gut cider she drank, enough, if he could persuade his sister, to buy him that fetching dagger he'd been eyeing for weeks.

The thought lightened his mood somewhat. It would be good to be armed again. He'd lost his last blade in a drunken bet with Tulsan, a bet he was still reeling from today.

"Ah, the Tabris Twins," the man himself appeared at the table, or more accurately, Tulsan's protrusion of a stomach appeared over their table. An enigma, that one, moving so soundlessly with so much bulk. "Lowyn," he whispered her name in his throaty growl of a voice. "You are a delight to behold, a true gift from the Maker's, yes? Such beauty," his tiny black eyes swept his sister up and down. "I keep telling Leo to bring you to my game night..."

"I don't associate with creepy pigs, Tulsan," his sister gave the man her customary cold look.

"Oh, you do not know your brother so well then, I see," the man laughed at his own joke, patting his stomach with his sausage-like fingers, setting his many jowls to quivering.

"We have your money," Lowyn snapped, smiles all vanished. "Now take it and bugger off."

"Tut, tut, Lowyn," he tapped one of those impressive fingers on the table. "It does not suit your beauty to be so unnecessarily impolite. Elves go missing all the time, you see, it is like they vanish in a puff of smoke...poof."

"My apologies, Tulsan," Leofric butted in before Lowyn could dig them into an even deeper hole. "Sit and have a drink with us, we'll buy you one, wont we sister?"

Lowyn looked like he'd asked her to swallow a bucket of thorns. As the loan shark dragged a seat over she threw Leofric a filthy look, banged her fists on the table as she stood, but strode to the bar nonetheless.

"Now, we are alone, my sweet boy," Tulsan patted his face with one of those hands in a gesture that the fat man probably saw as fatherly. Leofric endured the stench of his perfume and the sweaty touch of his giant hand with a firmly fixed smile. "I have business that we should discuss."

Leofric's heart began to beat absurdly fast at those words. This was it. It was happening right now. How long had he waited for the loan shark to welcome him into 'the family?' It's why he suffered nights of wicked grace in his foul company. It's why he ran poor paid jobs with his wretch of a sister. To get noticed.

Slimy and greasy and horrible as he was Tulsan had connections to people Leofric only dreamt of knowing.

"I'm all ears, my good man," he somehow managed to stutter out.

"I have a friend," Tulsan smiled, his gold tooth winking in the candlelight. "Who needs some...assistance. Someone with a very _particular_ set of skills.


	2. Blood is thicker than water

Lowyn Tabris couldn't say what she hated most about being a twin. Part of it, she was certain, was people's assumption that sharing a womb had somehow granted her and her brother mystical powers. Part of it, of course, was sharing everything else after that; food, clothes, blades, father and somehow this joint reputation they'd forged for themselves. At the top of the list, however, written in letters that would blaze across the parchment, was Leofric's constant insistence that _he_ was the eldest and that this random bit of timing made him their unequivocal leader.

According to her father's worn out tale, the Tabris twins had entered the world squalling, faces as red as their hair, Lowyn clutching Leofric's foot. This had always been a point of pride for her brother, as though her clutching his foot was a sign that he was the better of the Tabris twins and not just a quirk of the birthing room.

She often found herself wondering how different things would've been if he'd been clutching her foot.

Would she, for instance, have gotten them involved with that loose bowstring Tulsan and ended up turning tricks for pay they couldn't even spend? Would she, as an offhand example, ever have blithely accepted a job from a suspicious man she'd only just met? It was a matter of caution.

Thieves shouldn't advertise.

Leofric, her darling brother, had no such illusions. She'd seen him, down at the Pearl, running his mouth like a get-away cart, surrounded by his so-called friends; that good for nothing Hedric and that deranged shem Osgar. Mother had not trained them so they could swan around boasting of it. She'd been a practical woman, much more like herself than Leofric. _Caution, child,_ she'd always said to Lowyn. _Have caution in all that you do and watch the plans of your enemies unravel._

* * *

Mother always said he should trust in his guts and Leofric wasn't a man to ignore his mother's sage advice. A woman of wisdom that one, deep as the sky at night and as boundless as the stars. Maker, bless her soul. If only his sister was such a bountiful harvest of knowledge. He glanced over at her, slouching in her empty corner, gave her a dashing smile despite the glare he received._ She would be so much prettier if she just smiled,_ he thought, _after all she is my twin._

"Are the two of you...related?" the hooded man drawled, tapping his fingers on the desk in a rhythm that spoke of impatience.

"My sister," Leofric smiled, leaning back in his chair in a way he assured himself was both cat-like and elegant. Then suddenly feeling the need to explain himself to the silence, he shifted to rest his elbow on the table and leaned in close. "She is," and here he whispered, like to share a secret, "an utter bitch."

The laughter from the hood was lyrical, full of foreign sunsets and sunny shores. Leofric was sure the accent was Antivan, would have bet his sister on the fact. It stopped, sudden as a knife in the chest.

"Tulsan did not inform me you would come as a pair," again the man's fingers tapped against the wood.

Leofric weighed each word but the man kept his cards close. He did not seem angry. Leofric had tried to escape his blighted sister's evil eye but she was stuck to him like an angry shadow. "I hope this is not displeasing to you, sirrah."

"Perhaps it is not," the man mused. Leofric could tell little about him, except that the fabric of his cloak was a costly cloth and gems glittered on his fingers like oversized bugs on a plant. He was older than Leofric, but his only skin on show was his hands and they moved so quick that Leofric had no chance to guess their age. "She is onboard I take it?"

_She will be when I tell her the pay._ "Of course, she is just," he broke off, gave the man a charming smile. "Not a people person."

"I can use you both," the man muttered, clicking his fingers together in sudden decision. "If you're as good as Tulsan says you are."

"Oh, I am much better than that."

* * *

"Lo', you've got to be reasonable about these things!" Leofric hissed in her ear as they made swift progress through the nameless back alleys. She ignored him, pacing onwards furiously, eyeing some louts who were eyeing them from across the street. When one of them hailed Leofric, by name, by his actual name, she seethed forwards, shaking her head in utter contempt.

She refused to stop while he wagged his useless chin. Their laughter sounded off the high walls and she bit her cheek as she pounded onwards. _What an idiot._

He caught up with her, breathless at the open gates of the Alienage. "Come on, Lo'," he panted. "Don't be such a boor, this could be our shot..."

She whirled on him as soon as they were out of the sight of the guards. No need to wish trouble on themselves but she could only restrain herself for so long. "Are there worms living in your brain, brother or were you just born stupid?"

"Oh come on 'Lo, I told you..."

She punched him, hard enough to deaden his arm but he just shrugged it off.

"He was a Crow," Leofric finished anyway, but much, much quieter. Even he had enough sense not to go shouting that sort of business in the street. "This could be it, Lo', our big break, our way out of this dump," he waved his hands at the shacks of the alienage. "I didn't tell you how much he's paying..."

* * *

It was how these things always played out. He got them the lucrative jobs and she whined and whinged like a baby about every single one. He was tired of his sister's litany of complaints, tired of dragging her around like a scowling corpse. She'd cave eventually, after mulling over the money in their stashes and counting every damned copper in her head like a wizened old miser. An apology though? Pah, he'd not hold his breath.

Lowyn stopped as home came into view and he heard her curse under her breath.

"What is it?" he muttered coming up beside her, still flexing life back into his arm.

"Father's still awake," she indicated the candlelight glinting from the slats of their shack. "Perhaps we should..."

"Are you scared of breaking curfew? Daddy's little princess." Leofric stalked ahead, squaring his shoulders. He never missed a chance to remind his sister that he was the elder, the braver, the stronger. He heard her sigh and scamper after him.

Father was awake, of course, and there was no way of avoiding that disapproving stare of his, so Leofric burst headlong into the fray, expecting to have to defend himself with his sharp wit and his most dazzling smile.

But Father was placid and even gave him a warm grin. Leofric couldn't help thinking this was somewhat worse than disapproval. "My beautiful children," his wizened face beamed up at them as he and Lowyn packed themselves into the tiny room. "And where have you been at this hour? Causing trouble I expect," there was a fondness in his old man's voice that set Leofric's suspicions on edge.

"We are sorry, papa," Lowyn muttered from behind him. "We were out with friends."

"Like you have any friends," Leofric muttered under his breath.

"Children," their father cut across them both, indicating the ragged rug by the fire with a cough. "Sit with your father. I have something to tell you."

They looked at each other and Leofric saw his own suspicions reflected exactly in his sister's eyes.

* * *

Lowyn hesitated, her father was often a kind man but he knew when to punish them. This was hardly how he acted when he found them sneaking into the house in the middle of the night, stinking of booze and cigars and clearly carrying arms. He raised an eyebrow and all at once they were rushing to obey. They may break trifling rules but when their father was serious his word was law. Blood was thicker than water, so the saying goes and Lowyn didn't doubt it for an instant. Family was all she had, after all was said and done.

"I have some important news," their father began once they were settled at his knees. Lowyn gave her brother a sidelong glance and he tugged his lips down in an uncertain frown. _Well at least we're as clueless as each other._

"Is everything in order, father?" he asked, the furrows of his pale brow twisted together like knotted bark.

"Oh, yes, my son," their father smirked and Lowyn wondered if she'd ever seen such a look on her father's face. "It is time for my unruly children to settle down, to become adults not just in play but in truth."

"What are you saying..." Leofric's face was a mask of dread, all colour drained.

Father leaned forwards, his face alight with the youth and vigour of a man half his age. "You are not the only ones who have been keeping secrets," he looked at them in turn, his grin half-mad in the firelight. "I have one as well."

Terror stirred in the pit of Lowyn's stomach. _How much did father know? Did he know about their base? Did her know about their stash?_ She tried to remain calm and study his fond smiles. An inkling crept up her spine. "Father..."

"Did you think your childhood would last forever, hmm?" he sat back in his chair, touching his fingertips of his right hand to his left. "I am sorry my children, but all is arranged. Your betrothed will be here tomorrow."

"Betrothed?!" Leofric jumped to his feet.

"Tomorrow..." Lowyn muttered.

Their father nodded, a satisfied grin on his face. "I promised your mother I'd see you married. We knew this would be best, to spring it on you like a trap before you could plot your way out." He dabbed at his eyes with his fingers. "Let me keep my promise."

"This is unforgivable!" Leofric blustered, still standing. "I've got a life to lead, you can't just marry me to some wench from goodness knows where..."

"She's from Highever..."

"...she could be as ugly as sin!"

"I've heard tales of her beauty..."

"Outrageous!" Leofric covered his face with his palms. "Completely..."

"Leo'," she snapped suddenly and he stopped to gape at her. His eyes, the same deep green at hers were flashing with fury but she'd always had the knack of taming the wild beast that seemed to live just below her brother's skin. "We should do as father wishes."

* * *

"I won't do it Lo'," he muttered to the ceiling in the darkness of their cramped bunk. "I won't let him marry me off to some stranger."

Lowyn yawned, he knew it was simply to irritate him. "You will."

Leofric bunched up his fist and punched the straw mattress in frustration. "We could run, you know. Get rooms at the Pearl, spend some of the stash..."

"Not an option," she sighed and he felt like climbing down that ladder and slapping her awake. Didn't she see, didn't she care? A wife would ruin everything, he'd never be able to sneak out under some woman's watchful gaze. No doubt she'd be an utter troll, just to kick him in the teeth. He covered his pillow with his head and groaned.

"At least you'll get to stay here," Lowyn said. "I'll probably have to go to Highever with his family..."

"What?!" Leofric hissed, sitting up suddenly, thankful for pillow that muffled the ceilings blow. "Oh brilliant, how am I supposed to turn tricks without you..."

"I didn't think you'd miss me so much," Lowyn hummed, mocking him with every word.

"You're my sister, of course I'll miss you." And more so he'd miss the way she could cut a purse from a man's belt without the target batting an eyelid, miss her skill with poison and poultice and stitches and make-up, miss the damn fine stew she cooked every feastday. "We have to find a way out of this. We're supposed to meet with our hooded Antivan tomorrow!"

He heard Lowyn tut into the darkness, heard the bed creak as she turned over. "This is not some family dinner you can avoid, Leofric. We're getting married."

"Ergh!" He threw his pillow across the room, churlish, but he couldn't help himself. The mess of his life only just begun to make sense, all the pieces of his long mulled over existence fallen into place and now... he was supposed to take a wife!

"The only vow I'll be making is this one," he growled into the darkness. "I am not marrying anyone. Not this...wench father has procured, not the Queen of Ferelden, not even...not even the Empress of Orlais herself."

"Your arrogance is truly boundless," Lowyn muttered but he ignored her.

"Why are you so calm?" he hissed. "You've got it worse, having to traipse off with some northern low-life."

"I always expected it would come," she said. "It will be a fresh start, I can make a new life."

"A new life?! A fresh start?! Have you finally cracked, sister dear," he leaned over the railing of their bunk to stare down at her. "We were about to make our fortune, carve our way out of here on our terms but now you're going to skip off into the sunset with some numbskull and squeeze out a dozen of his whelps?"

"I'll come back on feastdays," she shrugged. "You'll still see me all the time."

"But you're..." he spluttered. "You're an essential part of my team, what about our stashes? What about the hooded Antivan?"

"I'm out, Leo'," she muttered, staring at the underside of the bunk, hands crossed over her chest like a corpse resigned to her fate. "I'm out."

* * *

_AN: Thank you all for your support for far. You guys are swell! I hope the perspective shifts aren't too confusing, every time we switch perspective there's a line break and it will always switch back to the other Tabris twin. This should only continue for a couple more chapters and then I'll get to whole chapters in their voices. Don't hesitate to tell me what you think :) Best Wishes WB _


	3. A Day for Celebration

Leofric's fury peaked and troughed from molehill to mountain, from feigning acceptance to vowing to run away to starting to pack his things and right back round again. She listened, patient as stone, secretly smiling that this was to be the last time she'd have to deal with his mood swings.

In a few hours short hours she was going to be free.

Highever. A place where no-one knew her name, a place where she was not simply 'Cyrion's girl,' or 'Adaia's welp,' or worse of all 'Leofric's little sister.' She could be Lowyn. No longer overshadowed by her tempestuous brother. She found it odd that she hadn't considered it before, marrying some handsome stranger from just far away enough that her reputation-and her brother-couldn't follow.

In Highever she could begin again. No more fear that Leofric's big mouth would get her a long sentence in a dark cell. By day she could be the dutiful wife and by night she could be whoever she wanted. She could have her own way-perhaps even her own team. People who respected her, who valued her ideas, who followed her orders. She liked the sound of that. She liked the sound of that a lot.

"Are you even listening?!" Leofric was spitting with rage, crouched among his belongings strewn across their shared floor. She wriggled up the bed, rearranging her pillows knowing she'd never sleep now dawn's long fingers wormed between the window slats.

He snarled, put his hands on his hips like a fishwife intent on dragging her husband back from the tavern. "I said, we could go to the Dalish...a couple of strong elves like us, they'd take us in quick as anything!"

A thousand thoughts flashed through her mind at once, most of them insults, and she settled with the most diplomatic. "We've never been outside the city, Leo. We wouldn't be able to find the Dalish let alone join them."

"Argh!" His hands flew into the air. He aimed a kick at the cupboard and seconds later was swearing and cursing and clutching his bare foot, hopping like a foul-mouthed rabbit.

She was about to resign herself to leaving the warmth of her bed and consoling her brother and, most importantly, prepare for what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life, when the door to their bedroom flew open.

* * *

He hated his family. His conniving Father. His irksomely calm twin. And now his intrusive cousin, bursting in like she owned the place.

They were plotting his downfall. Tying him to some anvil of a woman he'd never met and pushing him off a cliff, into the bleak wilderness of marriage. He was made for better things than being someone's husband, someone's father. He was made for climbing the ladder of success, to lead men into glorious battle...or at least through some noble's window to steal the silverware.

"GET OUT!" he shouted at the top of his voice.

Shinanni didn't balk, didn't move, didn't bat a painted eyelid, just swept into the room like she'd every right to be here, walked right past him as though he didn't exist and pecked his sister on the cheek with a toothy grin. "Congratulations, cus..."

"YOU KNEW!" He was fuming now. Fuming and spitting like fire touched oil. "Did the whole bloody city know before us?!"

"Just the people needed," Shianai shrugged. She span on the spot, setting her dress to rustling. "Do you like it? I'm going to be a bridesmaid."

"You look beautiful, cus," Lowyn grinned, sliding from the bed to embrace her cousin.

"HAVE YOU BOTH GONE STARK RAVING MAD?" Leofric shouted at the top of his lungs, which was a considerable loudness to stop the two women in their celebrations. "I am not," he whispered quietly, but no less dramatically. "Getting... married."

"They say denial is the first step," Shianai smirked. "Come on cus, just pretend it's one of those plays you used to make us perform. You get to be the dutiful husband."

"I'd rather be the runaway groom," he shook his head, overcome by despair yet again, he slumped onto his sister's vacant bunk and covered his face with his palms. "It's not fair!"

"Pfft, such a cry baby," Shianni muttered. "At least you're not poor Soris; he didn't have your father's connections to get him such a good match..."

"And how would you know that?" Leofric said, muffled by his palms.

"Know what?"

"That she's a good match."

"Didn't uncle tell you?" Shianani grinned. "Nelaros and Nesiara arrived last night."

* * *

It was beautiful. A piece of artistry. Lowyn had never owned anything as fabulous. To think about herself in it was to soil its beauty. She ran her fingers over the embroidery of the sash, longing to turn the dress inside out and see how such a thing had been accomplished. To get out her needle and thread and attempt to emulate such fine, close, stitches on such sheer, slippery fabric. But she was very much aware of Shianni's tipsy impatience, urging her on with a glass of wine firmly in place.

"Here, I'll help you."

It fit perfectly. Under Shianni's insistence she span around and felt light and girlish for the first time in years. She smiled at her cousin, and drank deep from the glass she thrust at her.

Yesterday, if you'd have asked her who her dream partner would be she couldn't have told you. Had never given the subject much thought. Today it flooded her mind as though a dam had broken. Would he be tall? She hoped he'd be taller than her, but not too tall, she didn't want to look ridiculous bending to kiss him or having to strain herself on tiptoes. Would he be handsome? She pictured the elves she'd found handsome before, took bits and pieces of them, rearranged their mouths, their hair, their ears, then caught herself doing it and cursed. She was a thief not some swooning noble lady that had never kissed a boy. Though come to think on it the only boy she had ever kissed was that apprentice tailor from Redcliffe and she'd only done that twice as payment for lessons. She's hardly enjoyed it, the shem was no more experienced than her and she'd found his attention utterly repulsive. Oh Maker, why was she even thinking about _him_ now? She put the wineglass down and realised Shianai was looking at her with a quizzical expression.

"Are you alright? You've gone pale?"

"Shinani..." she looked at her cousin in horror at what she was about to ask. "Have you ever..." she stopped, bit her lip, hoping her friend, her kin, the sister she'd never had, would understand.

Shianni crippled over, her laughter rich and dark and booming through the room like an over-worked war drum. Heat rose in Lowyn's cheeks as she stared at her cousin's hunched over form, spluttering and cackling like a witch in some fairytale.

"And what's so bloody funny?" Lowyn put her hands on her hips as Shinani tried to recover her lost wits.

"It's just..." her cousin looked at her. "I thought you'd be... experienced..."

"Well, I'm not," Lowyn huffed, liking it not very much that her younger cousin had obvious familiarity with something she knew next to nothing about. "Help me?" she forced out through clenched teeth.

Shianni opened her mouth and Leofric chose that moment to burst back into the room.

* * *

His father was as unwavering as a statue. Smirking like a cat who'd got the cream as Leofric paced across their living room.

"Father, I find your actions reprehensible."

"Do you, now?" His father's hands were tight behind his back and he did that irritating swaying thing he always did when in a fine mood, rocking his weight onto the balls of his feet and then back onto his heel. "It's the way we've always done things, my boy. I'm afraid there's no turning back."

"It's a monstrous tradition!" Leofric hissed, rounding on his old man. "We are not some chattel to be bred by the elders. We should be free to...to live as we wish..."

"But we are not, my son," his father's face finally fell. "You cannot fight it any more than you can the tide or the moon..."

"It's not fair!"

"And you are no longer a child, Leofric, to use such excuses," his father snapped. "Life is not fair," his father took a deep breath. "Put on your doublet and get married or I will haul you to the ceremony."

* * *

"Give it to me," he snapped at Shinani, hands outstretched. "Give me the gown you want to bury me in."

Shinanni rolled her eyes and turned to rummage in the chest she'd dragged here.

"Why do you look so pale?" Leofric turned his blazing fury on her next. "Finally realised we're being screwed over by these," he gestured at Shianai, "plotting ingrates?"

Lowyn cleared her throat. "Be reasonable, Leofric. Please, for me." She took her brothers hand and he stared at his limp fingers in her tight ones in abject horror. "We might not see each other for some time after today. Don't make me leave like this..."

"Shut up," he whispered, his usually pale features waning even further. "Don't speak like that. We can find a way out...together...we can do anything together."

"Not this," she said, bowing her head and letting go of his hand. "I want this Leo. Please try to understand..."

"Bugger it," his shoulders sagged. "Sis'," he broke off, clearly struggling to come to terms with her sudden affection. "I don't know what I'll do without you..."

Lowyn stifled a smile. He didn't need to know how happy his acknowledgment made her. "You'll find someone," she said, very much aware of their cousin listening intently. Shinani may be like her sister but that didn't mean the girl was privilege to her cousin's more illegal hobbies. "Come on, brother," she smiled, patting him on the shoulder. "Put on your doublet and let's go meet Soris."

* * *

Leofric was used to the world being against him. Nothing unusual there. _Like trying to fight the tide,_ his father had said, little did the wizened old man realise that was exactly what Leofric had been doing for the past five years. And sure, he'd had his pitfalls...the whole debacle with that whore Elsa had been most ugly and there was the time the guards had almost caught him trying to climb over some Arl's walls, drank as a skunk in nothing but his small clothes.

Now he was coming to think on it his sister had been there every time, to bribe and huff and roll her eyes and look truly menacing despite her skinny posture. Word spread quickly that Leofric Tabris' sister was as fast as the wind with the sting of a thousand bees. _You wouldn't think it to see her now, preening over that dress like some innocent maid._

His own doublet was tight-fitting, a hand-me-down he guessed, from someone not so broad of chest. He tugged at the collar, feeling suddenly warm and out of place as he watched his father kiss his sisters hand and tell her she looked beautiful. _I'm like a spectre at a feast,_ he moaned, _it's like we've swapped roles! _That made him balk and when Shianni thrust a mug of sour red into his hands he drank it in one fell gulp.

Then his sister was threading her arm through his and beaming up at him as she tugged him outside and into the sun.

If there was one thing the aleinage loved it was a wedding. Banners and flags had been hoisted to flutter in the spring air. Garlands of roses and lilies perfumed over the usual foul stench. The_ had been bedecked in ribbons of a thousand colours, each a wish for the brides and grooms. Underneath its familiar canopy, familiar faces drank and sang and smiled and hailed the twins as they passed. Leofric nodded solemnly back, feeling not a little queasy, but his sister -his sister had burst from her cocoon and transformed into a social butterfly. She smiled at strangers, even stopped to converse with a few. He stood to one side as she spoke to a bickering couple who waved and grinned at him and he waved and grinned politely back but he'd be damned if he could tell what they were saying over the pounding of his heart.

Was that a smug grin on his sister's face? He had never seen her wear such a smile and he finally put it down to his nerves. Maker, he was as highly strung as tightrope walker, his hands were shaking...his hands never shook.

"Try to smile, brother, you look half dead," his sister leaned towards him, speaking over gritted teeth as she tugged him like a toddler in her wake.

* * *

Leofric never acted like this. If she'd had the time to worry then she would have, but people were greeting her left right and centre and she was out of her depth, plastering a smile on her face as people pressed their hands into hers. She met an elderly couple, friends of her mother's, they forced a pouch onto her that jangled pleasantly as she hid it in the folds of her dress. Leofric was too busy being terrified to notice. She thanked them, trying to be the charming bride and feeling she fell well short of the mark. This was not her forte, making small talk and grinning like a fool, but she'd be quick to learn if she had to.

She steered her brother out from the crowds and spied Soris, leaning against the stilts of one of the overhanging buildings, as far away from the celebrations as he could be.

"Cus," he greeted her simply and then his eyes fell to Leofric and his grim face cracked into a smile. "Looks like I'm not alone with the jitters."

"It's not happening Soris," Leofric hissed. "It's not happening and that's the final word."

"A bit late for that," Soris rolled his eyes and looked at his shoes. "I'd swap with you though, mine looks like a mouse."

"Soris," she chided.

"I'd swap with you too, cus," he patted her affectionately on the cheek. "Some Tabris' get all the luck."

The thought warmed her to from the soles of her feet to the tips of her hair. "You think he's handsome?"

Soris sighed. "You'll be such a perfect couple," he nudged her in the ribs. "As will your brother and Nesiara, if he can pull his head from his arse."

"That will require skills far beyond the brightest healer of our times," she sniggered, ignoring Leofric's strangled rebuke.

"I'm in shock," he whispered. "I could die from being in shock, sister."

"Please," Soris waved his hand and blew out his lips. "You're just nervous..."

"What I am going to do?"

"Well...you could start by receiving your wedding gifts..." Soris grinned.

Leofric's fear slipped like a mask into astonishment. "Oh, ho-ho...nobody mentioned _gifts_!" He slapped his hand on Soris' shoulder, a small grin on his pallid face. "Every cloud, eh Soris? Every bloody cloud."

"Hands off, cus, this cost a fortune," Soris whined, but Leofric was already rubbing his palms together, nerves forgotten as avarice, old as Leofric himself, gleamed in his eyes.

"I'm off to swindle some marriage money," and before either of them could stop him Leofric had wheeled around and strode back into the crowd, head held high and shoulders thrown back like a King holding court.

"Unbelievable," Soris muttered.

"You think?" Lowyn grinned up at her cousin. "He'd of sold me for a few bob if I wasn't strong enough to knock him out."

Soris gave a dark chuckle. "Best hide that from your groom, eh? Wouldn't want him to feel unmanned."

* * *

"Three bits?" Leofric stared down at the coppers gleaming in his hand with frank disgust. "I've known you your whole lives and a bit each is all you can muster?"

The blonde elf, whose name Leofric always had trouble remembering, had the decency to look sheepish. "We're sorry," he risked a look from his feet to both of his companions. "We got some wine, if you'd...HIC...like some," he proffered the bottle with a lurch.

Leofric batted it away. "Is this how you treat your elders, boys? With contempt and dishonesty. How low we have sunk, the once great Elvhenan." He rolled his shoulders back, towering over the insolent youths in intellect if not in actuality. "You have something else...I can smell it."

And he _could_ smell it. In the way their feet shuffled, in the faint twitches in the dark elf's eyes and his hand as it moved to his breast pocket, in the curling down of the blonde ones mouth and his hesitant glance backwards. It was all there, writ across their faces, for Leofric to read like a book.

"We...didn't mean to offend you," the blonde one whispered eventually.

"Shut up, Isorin!" the darker one stepped forward, thumped his comrade in discourtesy on the arm. "Why should we give you all we have?" he hissed.

"Well, my good man," Leofric met his anger with a smile. A smile he liked to think of as his dangerous smile. The kind of smile he'd wear just before he killed a man. Not that he had ever killed a man. "Firstly, today is my wedding day and the reason you louts aren't hauling today's catch in from those frozen waters. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, if you refuse to give me that extra bit in your breast pocket," he pointed to the offending hidden coin and switched his voice to his dangerous-as-his-smile whisper. "I will get my sister and I'll tell her what ungrateful little shrews you are and she'll whip your arses from here to next Wintersend, do you understand?" He held up his chin in triumph. Lowyn was the best trump card.

The blonde one held his friend back as Leofric basked in his obvious victory. These scum were no match for him, small fry in a small pond and he was a shark by comparison.

The dark one shrugged his friend off and looked for a moment as though he were about to square up to him. Leofric puffed himself up and gave the boy his most frightful glare. "You'd hit a man on his wedding day would you?"

The dark haired elf leaned towards him, the stench of his wine soured breath hit Leofric's face and he tried not to gag. "Your sister will be gone soon, Leofric. You can't hide behind her forever."

Leofric became suddenly aware that he was outnumbered, that, though he called them boys, the hard life of the average alienage elf was filled with enough hard knocks to punch a child right through puberty and into adulthood, leaving them sinewy and strong. Three of them and one of him and he was relying on conjuring his sister's shadow.

He braced himself for the beating he was about to receive.

"Hey!" A voice, a blessed saviour, a spirit of justice. "What's going on down there?!"

* * *

He turned with the rest of them.

Martial work had left her hands calloused. Hard-practice left her with misshapen fingers made to curve around a hilt not be held as reverently and delicately as he touched her. As she stood under the gaze of the man whose life she was about to bind with hers she felt, for the first time, a hollow dread. She knew nothing about him. Didn't know if his charming smile hid some stirring darkness, didn't know if the kind lines of his face were a mask, didn't know if his sweet words perfumed a lying tongue. Each new terror spun her until she couldn't breathe. She said something back to his questions, something stupid and unintelligible, then untangled herself from his grasp and stepped away from him and cursed things for never being simple.

She had expected, like some foolish, idiotic, girl to fall in love at first sight. Handsome, Soris had said, and she couldn't disagree but in the glee of shedding her old skin she'd barely stopped to think about stepping into her new one. This man would be her partner for the rest of her life, she'd wake with him, eat with him, have his children and whether he was cruel or kind she would have no choice. It was her duty, she knew and yet she could not help but feel she was meant for more than being someone's wife.

"It's terrifying, isn't it?" he ducked to whisper to her. "The trick is to keep breathing."

"Sorry," she mumbled, looking down at her oversized feet still in her battered leather boots, poking out from beneath the silk. She shifted, trying to hide them under the hem of her dress.

"There's no need to apologise," he put a hand on her shoulder and she could feel its warmth through the thin fabric. "I'll devote my life to making you happy."

There was no leaping of her heart under his touch, no dizzy feeling in her head under his gaze, no warmth at the sweet things he said, it was as though the love in stories didn't really exist. She struggled to find something to say that wasn't false.

"Lo'!" Soris' panicked voice saved her. "Come on, let's leave these good people to prepare."

* * *

Nesiara was not the anvil he had expected to be tied to. Anvils were not as shapely, nor did they have such stern no nonsense voices, or hair the colour of silverbirch or skin that looked as soft as cream. She'd scattered the boys, who chucked the last copper piece at his feet before fleeing. He flicked it in the air with the tip of his boot, catching it deftly before turning to face his betrothed.

He knew it was her. Names he'd never been good with but he'd learnt the sound of every voice in the alienage, a good thing to know when one tended to creep around the boundaries of life. As his eyes slid up and down her magnificent form he stroked Maric's face, raised and immortal on the copper piece and gave her his most dashing smile.

Leofric liked to think of himself as a worldly man. He'd broken a few hearts in his eighteen years whilst his own remained stoically intact. He knew how to coax a pretty thing to his bed, had coaxed a few not-so-pretty things in his time. Nesiara would fall, like a city under siege. Shianni had been right, it was all simply an act.

"Sweet lady," he purred, giving his deepest bow with a flourish of his hand. "You are the very moon made mortal."

She gave a shy giggle that set Leofric's mind to wondering what other noises she would make, later, in the darkness of his room.

* * *

She was in the jostling of the crowd, Soris at her shoulder, her smile aching her cheeks, when a finger of fear ran from the base of her spine to the fire-touched curls at top of her neck. Between the well-wishers shoulders she could see Leofric, a smug self satisfied grin as he walked next to a woman the spitting image of her own betrothed. Her father stood not a foot away, a proud smile on his beloved cheeks as he spoke in animation to the elder. As she span she saw Nelaros across the crowd, glance up from his conversation to watch her. And as she turned fully around she saw Shianni, one limb high in the air as she shouted for Lowyn, a drunken smile smeared across her lips. And then her eyes jolted to behind her cousin and her stomach fell and the glass she was holding dropped to the floor and the terror she felt turned to rage.

_Shems._

* * *

_AN: Thank you for all your favs, follows and reviews. You guys are super awesome! Sorry for such a long chapter, shall finish the wedding next time. Oh and hope you all have a happy Inquisition! _


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